aven. "Michael
[Christ] and his angels fought against the dragon [Satan]; and the dragon
fought, and his angels." On the ground that there is no Devil, this would
be a wonderful battle--Christ and his angels, who are real beings, fighting
furiously against myths and nonentities which have not even the substance
of a phantom.

To endorse the doctrine of a personal Devil, is not to endorse the grossly
absurd caricatures conjured up by morbid imaginations, and popular
theology,--a being with bat's wings, horns, hoofs, and a dart-pointed tail.
Yet upon such pictorial fables he doubtless looks with complacency; as
they are calculated still further to destroy faith in his existence, and
enable him the better to cover his tracks and carry on his work among men.
Nevertheless the only rational hypothesis on which to account for the
present condition of this world (which every one must admit is full of
devilishness), the existence of evil, and the presence of sickness,
suffering, and death, is the account the Bible gives us of fallen angels
and fallen men. Unfallen angels are beings of mighty power. One of them
slew in one night 185,000 Assyrians (2 Kings 19:35); and the one who
appeared at the time of Christ's resurrection had a countenance like the
lightning, and raiment white as snow, and before him the keepers of the
tomb fell like dead men. Matt. 28:3, 4. A fall from their high estate,
though it would impair their strength and power, cannot be supposed to
have wholly deprived them of these qualities; therefore the fallen angels
still have capabilities far superior to those of men. The only defense
mankind has against them is found in Christ, who circumscribes their power
(for they are kept in chains, 2 Peter 2:4), and makes provision by which
we may resist them. Eph. 6:11; James 4:6-8; 1 John 5:18. The question why
they are permitted to continue finds solution in the thought that God is
consistently giving to sin time and opportunity to develop itself, fully
show its nature, and manifest its works, to all created intelligences, so
that when it shall finally be wiped out of existence, with all its
originators, aiders, and abetters, as in God's purpose it is to be (Rev.
20:14, 15; 2 Peter 3:7, 13; Rev. 5:13), there will ever after remain an
object-lesson sufficient to safe-guard the universe against a repetition
of the evil. Only some 6000 years are allotted to this work of evil; and
6000 years are as nothing compared with eter